Three days left

Oh boy, what a mess. I am mired in the move, so I am sorry if I am a bit behind down here.

Seriously, I can barely find the floor. Like a fool I packed most of my yarn in the load we took up last week, so I am left with a totally odd assortment of stuff. You know how it is, the few balls of knit-picks will in impossibly odd colors.

I did manage to finish one hat for little-sis. I think I also have enough to do mittens for this fall.

I asked her what she wants in a mitten the other night on the phone (the girls are staying with my parents during the final chaos of the move). She thought for a minute, then said she wants a thumb that can open. She's a thumb sucker. I am trying to think of a way to work it without ending up with a spit soaked mitten. Knowing her if I do not figure out this bit of knit-geneering she just will go gloveless is the frosty wasteland that is Richmond in January.

We leave on Saturday. Big truck full of furniture. For the record I turned 33 this April and this is my 16th move. Wish us luck!

Blog...what blog?

OK, so we are SUPPOSED to be driving to VA with the girls today. Like right now.

Except for the van is in the shop, or the "car doctor" as the children call the mechanic. It was doing this funky thing where as you speed up the AC, lights and radio volume would go up, and as you slow they went down. Fun for like 3 minutes.


The house is 33% packed and 100% messy. I am not even pretending that it could be clean again.


Plus big-sis is currently obsessed with spelling things. She is like THIS close to reading.

Problem is I do math, not spelling. You should have heard her huff when her dad told her I had spelled dinosaur wrong and she had to fix it on all the pages of her notebook. (What?!? There's no "E"?? Betcha you can't do partial integration!!). Her exasperated "mom is losing it" glare stung, I tell you.

Oh, and the server is down at the school board office, so the kids in the online class I am teaching are in a bit of a panic. They have a midterm next week.

The one oasis right now is my knitting. I am rolling away on my hurricane swap sock, I think I have the kinks in the pattern worked out.



I actually submitted a pattern somewhere...fingers crossed.

So I have all day to pack, and balance the checkbook, and stretch the last of the food for one more day.

And try to figure out what to knit in the car tomorrow.

Oh, here's little sis posing in the vest I mentioned last post.












The yarn is some leftover KnitPicks stuff I had. The pattern I made up as I went along. Moss stitch center, stockingette along the sides.


I used a tubular cast on...I am obsessed with this cast on now...it makes things look so nice!


Here is a real shot:


Sad part is I had to go outside in the rain to take this...there is not a clean surface in the house!!

So, where have I been?

Right now I am on the top bunk of an Amtrak sleeper car, heading south to Florida. Both girls are giggling in the bunk underneath me. It is 9:30 and they usually do not calm down enough to sleep until about 10. We have traveled by train a lot this year. We love it.

For the past week we’ve been staying with my folks in VA while I got started on the online class I am teaching this summer. Summer school is always an interesting mix of kids that need to pass to graduate, and kids that are trying to get ahead. It is a good group this year, ranging from 14 to 19. Quite the mix.

You’d think since I spent all week staring at a computer that I would have been able to post once, but no. This has been very consuming. I have done algebra online in the past, not geometry, so this is a new experience.

I am working on several things right now. A sock for my hurricane sock swap gal. I started doing the Pomatomus pattern from knitty. I love the pattern, but I kept making all the YO’s too big, especially the ones between the needles. I would like to try the pattern again to get it right, but since this is for someone else I want it to look better. It was getting huge holes where the YO’s were. You could use a toe in those holes. My fault, not the pattern. I’ve been too distracted to do fidgety technique.

So I am trying my own thing. On a side note, I have NEVER completed someone else’s pattern. EVER. I have started a few. I am always attracted to something with a new technique or pattern. But I quickly get tired and frog.

So it is with this poor sock. I am doing something simpler with ribbing and meandering Yo’s. Small manageable YO’s. I like the look so far. I’ll add pictures once we get home.

Home…another side issue. We move in three weeks. The girls are only down for two more weeks, then they get to stay with my folks while the husband and I drive up to VA with all our worldly possessions. How many boxes are packed?? Do not ask.

I did manage to get the office /yarn room painted while we were in Va. The room has two great walk in closets. One is big with shelves all the way around.

The other? Cedar lined. Yes, cedar. Even the floor. Even the ceiling. When we lived there before it was mostly full of baby clothes. I have come to my senses and ditched the baby clothes and accumulated a lot more wool since then.

Time to fuss at the girls. They are singing to the moon about roly-poly bugs. Loudly. At home this might be cute, but other people here are trying to sleep. Usually they play little house on the prairie, so I am not sure why we are on the roly-poly kick.

Goodnight! I’ll upload this sometime tomorrow.